D&D 4E 4e: Death of the Bildungsroman

[Scribble]

I'm still waiting to see just how lethal some of the things monsters can do are borne out in higher levels; the giant example is one where this imrpesses the point on me. The giant doing 1d10+5 per attack is not really any more than what a hobgoblin spellcaster or artillery of ten levels lower can do! The only difference is that the giant hangs around for a few more rounds, which is what effectively ups its damage output.

Eh I think 4e so far is shaping up to be more then just who can do the most damage the fastest... You also have to take into account the various things they can do, and ways they can do it. (Which while also true in previous editions to a degree seems moreso now...)

While true in 3e (Good Lord was this true at higher levels!) The streamlining for characters makes it quicker to make a new character of X level, much moreso than 3e, meaning a death can be bounced back from quickly. But you're right in the "players just don't like dying" thing. It's a cultural shift that I still have trouble with, learning to play in that Primordial epoch when you already had your next character brewing in the back of your mind while playing your current one, anyway...

Well I haven't yet made/ played a character for 4e yet, so if you're right... i will be VERY thankfull...

Eh I've been in the game since 2e... so I dunno if you consider me in your epoch! But I will say I've pretty much always had a ton of character ideas... but always HATED making characters...

I'm a slacker. I hate paperwork.

Maybe, however, since it's easier to roll up a new dude we'll see a cultural shift the other way? "Man... I have so many other ideas but this dude just won't die!"

 

[hong]

In 4e, the difference between a PC and a farmer is written in big bold letters everywhere.

Just like in every edition of D&D.

That does miss out on some of the appeal of taking a normal commoner and turning him into a god-slaying object of mythos.

You'll survive.

 

[hong]

What's "high mortality?" 10%? 20%? 50%? To me, as long as it doesn't go over 20% (one death per every other game, let's say) then I'm fine with it.

Let's just say that Henry's definition of high may not coincide with a lot of other people's definitions of high.

 

[Henry]

Eh I've been in the game since 2e... so I dunno if you consider me in your epoch! But I will say I've pretty much always had a ton of character ideas... but always HATED making characters...

I'll put it this way -- when I first DM'ed, M*A*S*H* still had new episodes.

And about the whole "new characters" thing -- as I was telling a friend of mine recently, it's been a long time since the current version of D&D gave me the ability to say, "let's play D&D" and have a session and new characters going in less than an hour. There are things I like and don't like about 4e, but this is one thing definitely in the "plus" column for me.

OD&D did it, but the lethality was very different, and it was expected, the same way people reload Grand Theft Auto over and over to complete some mission; if the goblins sacked you, you made a new party and jumped back into the Caves of Chaos to hunt down those Bree-Yarking bastards. But that's just me and mine.

 

[Scribble]

I'll put it this way -- when I first DM'ed, M*A*S*H* still had new episodes.

And about the whole "new characters" thing -- as I was telling a friend of mine recently, it's been a long time since the current version of D&D gave me the ability to say, "let's play D&D" and have a session and new characters going in less than an hour. There are things I like and don't like about 4e, but this is one thing definitely in the "plus" column for me.

OD&D did it, but the lethality was very different, and it was expected, the same way people reload Grand Theft Auto over and over to complete some mission; if the goblins sacked you, you made a new party and jumped back into the Caves of Chaos to hunt down those Bree-Yarking bastards. But that's just me and mine.

So quit holdin out on the worthers originals! Don't you lie to me all old people have them!

[Flee from angry mod...] hehehehehehe [/flee from angry mod...]

 

[Henry]

So quit holdin out on the worthers originals! Don't you lie to me all old people have them!

Darn kid! GET OFF MY LAWN!

 

[Sojorn]

OD&D did it, but the lethality was very different, and it was expected, the same way people reload Grand Theft Auto over and over to complete some mission; if the goblins sacked you, you made a new party and jumped back into the Caves of Chaos to hunt down those Bree-Yarking bastards. But that's just me and mine.

Heh, never really thought of rolling up a new character as respawning.

Shows how attached I tend to get to them

Edit: Not to say that you can't get attached to characters in a lethal system, just I have a hard time with it.

 

[Remathilis]

I consider the swingy nature of combat a feature, not a bug. In other words, if there is a chance that bad combat luck can spell the end of a party, then it works well for me, and emulates something I see in life quite frequently. I'd almost prefer to see such swingy nature in the mid-levels, too, not just the low and high ones.

Fortunately, there are plenty enough editions that do this, and one in particular is covered by OGL, so it's not going away any time soon.

See, I have a problem with that as a DM: if my PCs get lucky and crit my baddie, I make another and move on. I have no attachment to kobold #15. I pulled his stats out of the MM. My players give names, and personalities, and goals to their PCs, and I don't think its fair to have the same percentage of death for said PC and kobold #15. Thats not to say I don't think PCs should die, but I don't think there should be an equal chance of a mook and a PC dying. Early levels put PCs in that area (and later, Save or die does the same to high level) and I'm glad to see both go. Not because I think PCs need to be invincible, but because they ARE better than random monsters, and it should take a superior foe or superior tactics to defeat them, not single die role.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

Overpowered? We're not talking about an overpowered encounter here, we're talking about a properly balanced encounter where the PCs had bad luck and died. Which can happen very easily at 1st level in 3.X, because a single crit can take you from full hit points to bleeding out, or even flat dead.

Take a typical party of first-level PCs against two orc warriors. Orcs are CR 1/2, so that's a balanced encounter, right? We'll say the wizard has cast one spell today and has one casting of sleep left.

Round 1: Orcs win initiative. First one charges the 13-hp fighter and crits for 19, taking him to -6. Second orc attacks the 9-hp cleric and hits for 9, taking him down to 0 (staggered). On his turn, fighter bleeds to -7. Cleric heals himself back up to 5, since he can't do anything else without going into negatives. Wizard casts sleep at the orcs; both make their saves. Rogue flanks with cleric, attacks and misses.

Round 2: One orc attacks the cleric and hits for 6, taking him down to -1. Other orc moves to attack wizard and misses. Fighter bleeds to -8, cleric bleeds to -2. Wizard steps back, shoots a crossbow bolt at the orc attacking him, and does 2 damage. Rogue steps up behind that orc and attacks for 5 points, dropping it to -2.

Round 3: Remaining orc attacks rogue and misses. Fighter bleeds to -9, cleric stabilizes. Wizard shoots a crossbow bolt, misses. Rogue hits, but has no one to flank with (wizard is using a ranged weapon and so cannot threaten) and only inflicts 3 damage.

Round 4: Orc attacks 8-hp rogue and hits for 11, then moves to engage wizard. Fighter dies, rogue bleeds to -4. Wizard sees the writing on the wall and withdraws.

Round 5: Orc hurls javelin after fleeing 6-hp wizard, hits for 7 damage. Fighter is dead, all other PCs are unconscious and the wizard and rogue are bleeding out. Even if the DM is merciful and has the surviving orc try to take them captive, there's a good chance that either the wizard or the rogue will die as well before the orc can make an untrained Heal check.

This isn't a particularly unlikely scenario. Yes, the orcs got lucky (especially on the first round, with the crit and the two successful saving throws) and the PCs rolled badly, but there's nothing implausible here--I've certainly seen worse runs of luck plenty of times at the gaming table. The PCs' tactics were not bad, if not spectacular.

Recalculate that without the crits.

This is a silly way to design a game. If you need DMs to fudge rolls to keep PCs alive at low levels, why not just build a game where PCs have decent survivability at low levels? Same result, but now you're not relying on DMs to know that you have to fudge to make things work properly.

I thought the new edition was designed with 'complete fun' as a primary goal. If fudging a roll or two has the same outcome as more initial hit points, what is the difference? How does that make fudging less worthy as an option?

Or, a rule that gives 1st-level PCs more hit points. Much simpler. Which, funnily enough, is what 4E is doing.

If that is the ultimate solution, it begs the questions: How was that impossible in previous editions?

 

[hong]

Recalculate that without the crits.

This "solve bad design by ignoring it" approach to game design, it is interesting. Clearly, RIFTS is the best designed game out there, as no other game can approach it for pure freeform facilitation of the imagination.